When Winter Fell
by The Goat of Harrenhal
Summary: The Others have overrun the North and are on the verge of destroying the rest of Westeros. Only one sliver of hope remains when Samwell Tarly reunites with Jon Snow and tells of a way to go back in time and change the past before it is too late. Can the efforts of a few change the world before the horrible future comes to pass?
1. Act I: Foundations of ice

**Notes: Before I begin, I must acknowledge that for this story to be pulled off in a believable way, I need to as they say on the reddit page, **"**open a new a pack o' tinfoil.**"** This story is powered by many theories some of them mine, some of them from the forums that dwell on 'higher mysteries' and center on the how and why rather than the events themselves.**** I should also mention that fans who read the world of Ice an Fire, will recognize lots of content from the Westeros and Essos sections of the book (with a special eye towards worldbuildng), and there may be potential light spoilers from the Targaryen section.**

**Health Warning: the following story may result in damage to any preconceived notions and/or worldviews within the Planetos universe. Before embarking on this truly epic journey you may want to evaluate the state of your mental health. Should you experince any mental discomfort due to this story, you should stop reading and see your doctor immediately... Well, either that or you can go back to reading lighthearted single layered ship fics to soothe your troubled mind.**

**Prologue**

Seeds that were planted long ago would ripen a long time later for a harvest unlike any other in the history of men. Much that had been grown before that fateful harvest was lost to the world.

It began with the pact on the Isle of Faces. The Children of the Forest and the First Men concluded their long and bitter war with a marriage between the high queen of the Children and the high king of the First Men. The greatest powers in the land were joined in one union, for where the First Men were patriarchal, the Children were matriarchal.

The Children of the Forest and the First Men lived in relative harmony. But there were some who resisted; the hatred was deep for some children.

In the land of always winter, a great Citadel of ice was erected by the chidren of the forest where the Lights of the North shone bright and nightly. Its new inhabitants had been chased from their lands by their more fearful but, more peaceful neighbors.

It was was here, that the outspoken greenseer priestess who led the group decided to reclaim the lands they had lost.

The children used their magic to create a new race, of humanlike creatures. They were tall as men and gracefull as the children. Their bodies were meant to withstand the cold, their skin pale as milkglass, their eyes colored like deep blue stars. Finally, one unlike any other was made to command them all.

This one had the features of a woman with inhuman beauty, as befitting of a design at the hands of such a matriarchal culture. Into whatever passed for its soul, the children vested their malevolence, and will to dominate. It would be known as the Great Other.

The Great Other, had been given no sense of loyalty to its creators, and with a force of Others behind it greater in number then their creators, the cult of children were slaughtered by the very monsters they had created.

Had it not been for one fatal flaw, the others would have inherited the world. They were easily killed by obsidian as the creators did not intend for them to overrun the world. For this reason, they could not breed either.

And so it was that the Others sought out to clean the World of those that their creators hated. The Others found soon found that young humans and even children could be turned, and if they resisted, the Others could simply perform necromancy on their slain enemies.

They were creatures of darkness and bitter cold, and in time, the population grew so much that the balance of seasons had changed. They held sway over winter, greatly throwing off the seasonal calendar. The winters became longer and harsher, but the cycle still had to continue, and so it was that summers were usaully as long as the winters that came after them.

As the age of heroes progressed the seasons became longer and in the wintertime, the days became shorter and shorter. It eventually came to pass that nights could last for months, even a year.

It was then that the long night came. Unlike previous winters, this one covered the world as a whole, when the Others moved further south. Even in Dorne, the sun rarely visited.

When the Children of the Forest learned that Obsidian, or Frozen fire as they called it could stop the Others, their advance was checked.

In this day, a prince who promised by the old gods who came from the line created the pact fashioned his famous sword lightbringer, with the blood of his true love, for all great swords seem to require blood sacrifice of some sort. The blade was so called not just for its brightness, but for the the heat it emitted when when the bearer was favored by the old gods.

A great battle happened in a place not too far away from the isle of faces where the virtuous armed with odsidian and fire threw back an army of undead five times their own size.

Though the Others were broken for a time, the virtuous had suffered tremendous losses. The hero who is now known to the world by a dozen different names set out with a dozen of his closest companions, and searched for the Great Other that he had seen in visions.

Years later, at a hot spring far north of the neck and the towers of Moat Caillin it found him, a great duel was held between the hero at the Great Other, a duel unlike any fought before or after, in which the fate of humanity was untimately settled. With a razor thin blade of crystal cold as ice, the Great Other was a match for the hero and his blade of light. The Great Other saw what manner of a warrior the last hero was and tried to use her hypnotic abilities and take him for her King, but the great warrior was protected by Lightbringer which shielded him from her attempts. In the end, it was not the blade that triumphed, but the cunning of its wielder. He had noticed some loose stones on the walls of the cavern in which the battle took place, as the noise the carvern grew, they loosed further and so the hero pulled out his warhorn and blew with all his might.

Much of the Cavern had caved in and the resulting rockslide mortally wounded its cause, but the Great Other could not have avoided it either, and was pushed into one of the hot springs, defeating Queen of Night. Suddenly the minions of the Great Other broke and fled, presumably returning to the place of their origin.

Dying he summoned his son who was the only companion to have survived the journey. To his son, he gave the broken warhorn, and his sword.

His son would live on to be a legend in his own right, and founded a kingdom on the land in which his father died. He was not the legendary warrior that his father was; rather he found fame in building great feats of engineering all over lands that would someday be called Westeros.

But the day came when his legacy was used against him. The Great Other had not been wholly destroyed and the time the came when its power was restored. It set out to use everything mankind had created against its makers and began with Night's Watch. The great other used it's hypnotic ability to seduce its lord commander whose namesake had formed the very wall he was charged to defend, and afterwards became the Night's Queen. Once again the righteous marched against evil and truimphed throwing down her king, but it was a hollow victory, for the Night's Queen had escaped.

Many years later, The Queen of the Night had a force at her back unlike any other, and brought down the Night's Watch in the same way she had earned the title Night's Queen. The Others swarmed the North and reaped a prodigious harvest from the chaos. There were many reasons that night would truimph this time, and many of them were left to the grip of the Others…

* * *

><p>"Loose!"<p>

The arrows were loosed with the song of a volley that came from half frozen longbows, and once again they rose and fell like a thousand falling stars all alight at the tips. With every volley, pillars of flame that bore stauch contrast to the barren snow covered moorlands, gave proof that the arrows had found their marks and were faintly visible in the storm that came with the others.

The survivors of the North had held their own against an army of undead wights whose numbers nearly matched their own. Many who held the line, did so with torches, and in some cases shards of dragonglass.

Victory could have come that night, but the power of things left behind to the darkness was too great and side of the light was too weak. The first thing they heard was a loud cry that came from up in the clouds on that dark evening. For one terrible moment friend and foe, living and dead alike, halted the battle and stared in awe at whatever it was that had come to the fray.

They came down through the clouds, all three of them and descended on the living. Their scales were black, grey, and white but they all shared those malevolent blue eyes. The beasts were ice made flesh, just like their riders. As got closer to the fighting they opened their jaws and from their jaws they unleased a torrent so cold that any steel in its path shattered and any men in its path died instantly from exposure to the cold.

The man, who commanded the survivors here, was no fool and saw no chance of standing alone in this war. South of the Neck, the greatest civil war since the Dance of Dragons had ended, and only one dragon survived where several had once existed at the climax of that great conflagration of fire and blood that would leave the Seven Kingdoms with scant chance of survival.

The Northmen were already retreating when Jon Snow gave the order to fall back to Moat Caillin.

* * *

><p><strong>Samwell<strong>

The bedraggled banner of the Starks flew defiantly over the Gatehouse tower Moat Caillin. The last time Sam had passed these ancient towers, it was late summer when the air gave a pleasant chill on the journey he undertook to Castle Black.

Today, the winds of winter took a bite sharp and cold as a leech.

He led a force behind him of eight hundred men. Many of them had fought on losing sides of the wars that the watch was not supposed to take any part in. Others had simply lost everything to the conflicts.

The Riverlands had been turned to ash after most major battles had been fought in the disputed lands of Westeros, and its people were starving from lack of foodstores. The Crownlands had fared little better during the war. They had the misfortune of supporting the Lannisters, then the Tyrells, then King Aegon. When Daenerys Targaryen took the city of her ancestors with Fire and Blood, her hand, the new Lord of Casterly Rock rode out into the countryside and put many he considered disloyal to the sword. Some at least were allowed to join the Night's Watch, which accounted for nearly a third of his recruits.

In the Reach, the showdown between Aegon and Daenerys bore an eerie parallel to the Dance of Dragons, with turning fathers against sons, and Brothers against brothers. Marriage alliances meant nothing when the Hightowers, Redwynes and Fossoways betrayed House Tyrell for the favor of Dragons. The Dornish who sided with Aegon had caused further devastation. Oldtown itself had been sacked twice, first by the Ironborn and then by the Dornish, who disobeyed their King's orders to spare Oldtown.

In the end, Daenerys Targaryen had triumphed at the battle for Tumbleton, when her last surviving Dragon, Rhaegal descended on Aegon whom they called Blackfyre, and ate him. In the aftermath of the battle he met with the queen who spared him for his membership in the Night's Watch just as much as for his knowledge of Maester Aemon. She was chivalrous and even pardoned his brother Dickon for House Tarly's support of her rivals.

As a gift, Sam gave a beautiful Qohorik blade that had been made for greatly feared Euron Crow's Eye that had been made sometime before Sam joined the Night's Watch when he was had been recently exiled by his family. The blade, he had taken off the corspe of the Crow's Eye when the Dornish besieged the Oldtown, which had been held by the Ironmen. The resistance in the city had felled just as many of the Ironmen as the Dornish had.

The Ironborn King, held a pair of daggers made in Qohor, which had clearly been cut from the same steel. Both of these, Sam kept for himself because he would need both of them.

Brushing aside thoughts of the past, he thought of the future as he entered the Gatehouse tower where Jon would be. All around him he saw ragged survivors huddled near fires that seemed to be everywhere. The atmosphere of despair that he felt, reminded him so much of retreat to Craster's Keep when the Fist of the First Men had fallen.

Jon looked up at him, as he entered the solar. He looked as if he had aged ten years since the last time they saw appearance.

For a moment they stared at each other in silence.

"Well, I'm back," Sam broke the silence.

"You've changed Sam," Jon spoke quietly. It was true, Sam had undergone some harsh journeys of his own, and he had even lost nearly two stone in weight.

"So have you," said Sam, the look Jon held was one of despair.

"We lost the war Sam, the Others won. Not even that dragon queen in the south can save us anymore, they have dragons now, dragons of ice."

"I learned some important things in the Citadel, what if I told you that we could change history?"

Jon looked at him as if he was mad, and maybe he was, but Jon was desperate and wanted to believe it just as much.

"How could we change the past?" Jon's tone was incredulous.

"I found fragments of a manuscript in the Citadel Vault that told of a way to go back in time, but we have to find the place that winter fell."

* * *

><p><strong>Notes: For those eagerly awaiting the next chapter of my other current story, "the Game Ends," don't worry, I haven't abandoned it. I just simply felt a stronger need to start this story (its currently slow writing for which I blame Aeron Dampbrain), which has already has great outline so far that will take an absolute minumum of 30 chapters to cover, and that's well before I reach the climax of this story. <strong>


	2. Into Darkness

**Flashback**

"Are you really going north, slayer?" Dolorous Edd was gloomier than Sam remembered. He no longer flinched at the nickname slayer; he had long since learned to accept the name.

"Yes Edd, I am, and you will command the survivors." Sam still felt slightly nervous at the prospect of going into the frigid North, with Others, looking for every man, woman, and child left behind. It least Gilly and her babe would be safe for a while.

"Do you think you'll come back?" Edd was skeptical and rightly so.

"If were successful we won't have to, and if we're not, I suppose I'll end up back here soon enough."

Dolorous Edd gave what appeared to be the begginings a sarcastic grin, "if you end up as a wight, say hello to Craster's boys for me, I hear they get to be on the winning side."

**Jon**

They went north, just a party of two people and a direwolf during what might have daybreak in better days. The skies had cleared up only recently, and the snow was only ankle deep on the Kingsroad, and knee deep aside the road. The tracks of the retreating survivors had long since vanished save for a few lucky stragglers who had survived this far alone from the battle.

He had left Lord Davos in command of the surviving Northmen, and Dolorous Edd with the command of the Night's Watchmen and the free-folk who had come south.

Technically, Jon was no longer a man of the Night's Watch. He had died when his brothers murdered him for the watch. The Red Woman had kissed him as was custom in many parts of Essos for paying respects to the newly departed. To both of their surprises, Jon had returned from the dead.

Jon could have renewed his vows to the Night's Watch, but he had things to do that would have required him to break his vows. The new Night's Watch would not have him anyway without much bloodshed. Supporters of Bowen Marsh had staged a coup and many of his loyal brothers simply fled with him for fear of their lives, so tenuous had matters been between Marsh's supporters and his own.

It mattered not, when Jon went south with the free-folk, many men of the Watch left the wall and joined him to free his little sister from Ramsay Snow.

The cause was for naught; when he reached Last Hearth, he met Ser Justin Massey who claimed to have her. Theon Greyjoy or rather what was left of him had helped the girl escape, and the signs of abuse were real enough, but it was not Arya. Instead, it had been Jeyne Poole, Sansa's childhood friend.

Jon was not going to turn back, even the Kingroad was difficult to travel, and the free-folk would sooner die than to march back might as well have continued south to rally support for the Watch. There was also the subject of Mance Rayder of course. The King beyond the wall, Jon had later learned, had escaped his cage when Stannis entered Winterfell by, disguising his army as victorious Freys whom they had ambushed. Ramsay Snow though badly wounded had been taken alive,and was burned as a sacrifice to the Lord of Light. True to Bastard of Bolton's word the cage was shrouded by sewn together flayed skin. Jon did not actually see the cage, but it was a tale Northmen would remember and talk about. Mance Rayder later found him on the way south, near the west fork of the White Knife and told the story.

A turn of the moon later, Jon entered a ruined Winterfell with seven thousand at his back rather than the over ten thousand that he had left Castle Black with. In most cases nobody took the time to burn the corpses south of the wall. _We're paying for that now_, thought Jon.

The day, the night, or whatever it was now, passed without incident and when night fell, they made camp, and agreed to sleep in shifts. A fire was made for their warmth as well as that of the horses, which were hard to come by these days, and doubly so since they were the small and squat garrons bred by the clansmen of the North. Most importantly, though, the fire was for any wights that came near. At the rate they were going, it would be one or two more days before they passed the Queen's Stop hill where the Ice Dragons were seen for the first time.

Jon had no idea where they came from, and Sam insisted that it the Others never had dragons before. Of course there were no dragons in Westeros before Aegon's conquest. For that matter, for all the dragons that were once in the world, none had had ventured into the North, for someone would have seen such a sight.

"Is it true, about the Night's King?" Sam asked Jon that night over the fire when they made camp.

Jon did not want to think of those who chose to stay behind at the wall out of duty. "I think so Sam, the 999th comander of the Night's Watch didn't listen to Lady Melisandre, any more than the last one did." Jon was not entirely sure what had happened, it had been said that Bowen Marsh had taken ice for his mistress, just as Stannis had taken fire for his. The determined but low burning flame that had been Stannis Baratheon had been snuffed out at Winterfell, of how Jon did not know. He had been in south of the Neck at the time, to plea for support from the south. Only a motley selection of riverlords whose allegiance for Stannis he had earned answered his call.

None of the Targaryens or anyone else who called themselves king cared about what happened north of the Crossing, and Queen Daenerys Targaryen even sent him a raven saying that she would not "bring her army to aid the bastard spawn of a usurper's dog and servant of the usurper's brother." He still had a hard time understanding why Samwell spoke so highly of her. He gave a plea of his own to save the Watch, but only got prisoners of war and scant supplies. Well, that and a pardon for his brother.

The night was thankfully uneventfull as the day. The lines between night and day were greatly blurred, but the moon was still visble when it was night, and sometimes, just sometimes during the day they felt what might have been flickers of sunshine that faded just as soon as they appeared.

After two days in the vast snowy moorlands travelling north, they passed the Queen's Stop Hill by the sight of the battle, and cooked a warm meal within the long deserted roadside inn for which the hill was named. Modest supplies were salvaged from the inn which had been hastily deserted, not a fortnight ago.

They left the place, and made sure that camp would be at least several miles away. As much as they wanted the warmth, it would not do to be trapped in a place where so many had died without being burned.

It mattered not, halfway into Jon's shift, He could feel the unease that Ghost felt. Since Jon had been killed, he paid more attention to his direwolf and its senses. Sure enough, he could see the silhouettes of the enemy outlined against the light of the moon as they climbed .

Jon nudged his friend and companion awake, "Sam, they're coming."

Tarly wasted no time in getting up, and instinctively produced a torch which he lit by the light of the campfire. They woke and saddled their horses with careful movements. They could not be too quick, if they worked up a sweat for it would only be a matter of time before it turned into a sheet of ice.

They would not waste energy fighting off the enemy, when the option of flight remained, so they took it. The wights were not a hundred feet away when they climbed the saddles of their horses and rode of easily outpacing the slow and clumsy wights.

Their flight took them to a cave, one of many in that could be found in the barrows of the First Men that dotted the moorlands from Barrowton to the White knife. along the kingsroad, they seemed to form a monotonous pattern. Here, they rested for the remainder of the Night. The barrows were regarded by many in the North as haunted, but neither Jon nor Sam, cared. Things worse than ghosts ruled the North now.

When morning came, which was dark but somehow lighter than the night, even without the clouds that moved in over the night, they prepared to press on.

"Jon, how far does this cave go?" Sam asked of the cave that though narrow seemed to go on.

"It won't take us to Winterfell, will it?" Sam had another desperate idea, but this one he did not sound so sure of.

In the end he decided to look, the cave was big enough for the horses to come in if led on foot, and after a few turns, they found a great cavern that traversed in two great directions. Sam waved the light of their torch, and Jon could pick out another opening in across the cave.

In some ways, it reminded Jon of the vast cave networks beyond the wall. They were the same ones that Gendel and Gorne had once used to sneak past the wall.

On and on the cavern that linked the entrances to the barrows went. Jon knelt down to pet Ghost, "Lead us home boy," he whispered into the ear of his faithful companion. They followed Ghost's instincts which Jon had long since learned to trust.

They had no idea how long the cave stretched on, or even if it stretched as far as Winterfell. They didn't even know if it was safe from the Others, but it was much warmer down here.

Though it was daytime up above them, the sky was still dark and the clouds barred the light of the moon the last time he saw the surface. The steady drip drip of melted snow steadily made its way along the sinous ruts flowing in their direction and ending who knew where, as they continued the path of the cave that seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.

**Note: some of you are probably wondering why I didn't send Jon back in time for the opening of the story, but I decided to spend some time first in the apocalyptic post-Dance future. This is not the first story of it's kind, but unlike many others of this type this story needs to have a clearly established 'what happened after the books' part, which in turn sets a solid direction for the rest of the story, as opposed to many writers silently throwing up their hands and saying "now what". The first five or six chapters will be some of the hardest to write, but will make the rest of the story easier for me (be forewarned there will be a few surprises that will be difficult to read for those with a queasy stomach, before the past is revisited).**

**Any questions about the current state of affairs? (there is quite a bit to cover before phase two begins) let me know via PM or Review, I really do read those, and they help keep me going.**


	3. Under the skins of wolves

**Flashback**

The port of Maidenpool came into view under the evening sky. As much as he hated to do it, he had to leave Westeros and flee across the Narrow Sea.

Petyr Baelish had lost the game of thrones at the Stokeworth Field. Daenerys Targaryen had landed in Oldtown, and held dominion over the Reach and the Stormlands and was preparing to marching on King's Landing when they struck. The Lannister rule had precious few supporters remaining, and Baelish was going to enter the city in triumph.

He had other reasons too, there was too much evidence of his tracks in King's Landing, and neither the dragon queen much less her advisors had any reason to love him.

He had planned to take King's Landing and bend the knee to Daenerys Targaryen after a show of loyalty, after which he convienently covered his tracks. If any of the Tyrells that were hostage in the capitol were compelled to sing about the murder that they pinned on the Imp, there would be hell to pay, and besides, the Dragon Queen had a strong sense of paranoia that he would not be able to pander to if his feats were known.

All had gone awry when his army of Rivermen and Valemen moved on King's Landing under the false pretext of aiding Cersei Lannister's dying of the Crownlands rose up in revolt against the Iron Throne and some lords even raided his supplies in hopes of delaying his army. He later realized that they had an objective of stalling him long enough, for Jorah Mormont's small army to arrive.

That implacable bear of a knight refused to parley and made his stand on a hill in sight of Castle Stokeworth.

Three times they had charged the hill, and three times they were repulsed. Finally, a company of crackshot archers found him on the battlefield and felled him. With their leader dead, they began to rout and Littlefinger would have finished them had an army of Westermen not struck him in the rear.

Tyrion Lannister was supposed to be somewhere around Riverrun, but as he had later learned in a Duskendale tavern, that he had used barges to cross the God's Eye and slip past Harrenhal.

His heart actually ached at the thought of Harrenhal. Last he had seen Sansa; she had given birth to the new lord of the Eyrie (who was secretly his).

He could never have Cat, but her daughter was even better. She was angry at him no doubt. He had hung the ominous threat of Harrold now an Arryn over her head, and she agreed to sleep with him. He had died anyway not a fortnight later, of an illness that had followed him around since his wedding night.

It was still worth it though, thousands had bled and died including most of her family, so that he could get her with child. She probably didn't want to see him again after learning that he could have made all the difference for Lord Stark. Still, it was worth it. He just wished he could see his son again, but it would be better if Westeros did not know he was the father.

For some reason Sansa liked that hot blooded oaf. Harrold Hardying as he had born, reminded Littlefinger far too much of Brandon Stark with only a light dash of Robert Baratheon which made him even more of a pleasure to snuff out.

As for King's Landing, Cersei Lannister had fallen shortly before the Targaryen supporters entered the capital. It had been said that Cersei had planned to burn down King's Landing on her little brother's army that assaulted the city without the support of dragons. When the Throne Room was taken, both Cersei and Jaime Lannister had been found dead in each other's arms, most likely of wounds they had inflicted on one another.

As he rode down the nearly deserted streets of Maidenpool, he took a glance at the fountain for which the town was named, and he felt himself smile inwardly at his own story.

He bought a room at a waterfront inn, and took a long rest but did not fall completely asleep, he could sleep all he wanted on the ship, and besides there was a bounty on him as if he were some common criminal.

When morning came, he sought out a ship on the waterfront, and found one bound for Pentos.

The cabin fare was reasonable and the captain asked fewer questions than the sailors in Duskendale.

Had it not been for Lord Mooton, he would have gotten away. The lord of Maidenpool who was presently speaking with another captain turned and had recognized him.

As soon his retainers seized Baelish, he knew the game was over. Petyr Baelish was a truly horrible man, of that he made no excuses, but his regrets were still few.

**Daenerys**

It was still cold in the Riverlands, but the storm had passed, and the sky was much brighter than it was hours before. Now the skies were clear, and it was a decent time for flying.

A good coat, made from the pelt of a great wolf kept her warm as she flew over the charred and frozen countryside. The wolf, to which it had belonged to, had cut down thirteen of her best hunters before the great beast had been felled for the magnificent coat it that now warmed her.

The snowfall had stopped after the storm and the ground was settled like the Seven Kingdoms after the war to reclaim her rightful throne.

Before her was the great ruined citadel of Harrenhal. Within, would be her hand, Tyrion Lannister.

Dany reigned in Rhaegal, telling him to descend on the remains of Balerion's dread. Of her three children, only Rhaegal remained.

Viserion had been killed in Mereen during the battle of Slaver's Bay, taking a scorpion bolt through the eye when Victarion Greyjoy took control of the dragon with his hellhorn. Afterwards the ironmen who made it ashore had been burned to a crisp by remaining children.

Drogon, had been poisoned by the Citadel, such was her folly for not listening to archmaester Marwyn. Of the true culprit, she had learned from Maester Samwell who had gone north after Tumbleton. She rode south, afterwards and burned the Citadel, for no one could cross the dragon unscathed.

She made a spectacular entrance, landing in the great plaza that stood in between the the five great towers of Harrenhal.

The garrison stood at attention, and several hundred prisoners were currently being brought out into the open, in fetters. From the look of things, they had not been told soon enough of her coming.

A gallows stood, newly erected in the hardened soil in anticipation of someone's arrival arrival she could tell.

Those present in the yard bowed, as she descended from Rhaegal.

She approached Tyrion Lannister, and bid him to rise.

"Harrenhal is yours, your grace." his replied in a gruff tone, eager to be somewhere else. Where or why, she could not say.

A young wiry man in black ringmail approached Tyrion, just as she turned away, "Lord Tyrion, the hangman is waiting."

The first man was brought forth in chains, he had clearly endured some beatings and unless she was mistaken, his mouth seemed to be sewn shut. It was said to be Lord Lannister's punishment for liars and cheat. Of those who had testified against him during his trail for murdering a false king and his nephew, many had suffered similar fates.

The Imp, as many in the Seven Kingdoms took to calling him, spoke to the man with mocking courtesy. "Lord Baelish, I told you that I always pay my debts."

She strongly disliked Tyrion, but he had handled affairs in King's Landing with great success and brought order to the countryside north of the capitol while she went to war in the Reach. To him, there were weapons other than sword, arrow and beast. He fought wars not with valor, but cruel unpredictable cunning.

She did not personally trust him, but he had no interest in keeping the job longer than he had too. If there was one thing she understood about him, it was his desire to get away from King's Landing.

"You started the wars, and brought choas to the Seven Kingdoms, and now I'm going to put you on the end of a rope as I should have done, when I was Joffrey's Hand."

Dany felt herself frown at the mention of his nephew. That Tyrion was innocent of the murder of the Usurper's alleged son, was public knowledge for nearly a moon's turn. Under questioning, Margaery Tyrell, their false queen, confessed to having poisoned her new husband. She had been taken alive when King's Landing fell. Her grandmother, the Lady Olenna, whose cunning eerily reminded Dany of the Green Grace in Mereen, had also been taken.

For all of her smarts and cunning, she confessed the truth of the matter at Baelor's Sept at the point of a sword. Her grandchildren were spared from his malice, but she was compelled to join the Silent Sisters while Mace Tyrell chose to take the Black.

The realm was in much better shape with the two removed from its rule.

"Do you have anything to say, before I give you to the hangman?"

Baelish said nothing.

"Well, that's dissappointing, I might actually miss your japes, Littlefinger." She let him have his joke, his was a morbid sense of humor. "It's a shame that the Spider is now dead. Had he still been alive, I might have sent him your root and stem." He gave a mock titter. "I suppose that we can bury it somewhere, maybe the Crypts of Winterfell. I'm told that Ned Stark has a statue of his own down there, do you suppose your manhood will be a good peace offering for his vengeful spirit. We're living the curse of those damned wolves right now."

Dany did not fail to notice the unease in Tyrion's voice. She had no idea what was going on in the North, but only recently, she had whispers of demons made of ice ruling the north. Stannis Baratheon, the usurper's brother, was said to have been slain defending Winterfell, the ancestral seat of the Starks against the mysterious creatures.

He and three others were escorted atop the scaffold where nooses were placed around their necks and those whose mouths were unsewn offered their last words.

One, a morbidly obese man, who wore a lordly doublet that sported six silver bells on a purple field, wept like a coward and made a futile plea for mercy. Before he could finish, he was dropped from the platform, and the rope tightened as the condemned made a frantic dance in midair while his body swayed at the end of a rope in a gruesome spectacle.

The second man gave his speech; he was a handsome man, but lean and dangerous as a viper. "I am Lyn Corbray, and I am as guilty as a man can be." He gave a defiant smirk. "My sins and crimes are beyond count. I have murdered men, women and children for joy and taken my pleasure off half the boys in the Vale, but my greatest crime was to fight on the losing side of a war."

The hangman dropped him from the gallows, and Ser Lyn fell to his death, amid the vulgar cheers of the crowd.

The third man gave his speech, which was directed towards her. He had a large beak nose and sported a well trimmed black and pointed beard. Unlike the rest, he did not appear to have suffered any beatings.

"Let no one say that Symond Templeton, the Knight of Ninestars, died a coward. My ancestors are smiling on me now, can Lord Tyrion say the same of his own, can his silver haired whore of a queen say that. No Templeton of Ninestars will ever bend the knee to an abomination born of incest, or the followers of demon faiths she brought to usurp Westeros. you may take our lives, you may take our own liege lord and give him the Imp for a father figure, You can even burn our homes, but freedom will come to the Vale of Arryn."

She could feel her inner dragon waking. How dare this knight call her a usurper. The new lord of the Eyrie would stay as far as possible from these rebels. She had heard that the boy in question had yet to see his first nameday.

The faith militant had declared the boy a bastard due to the validity or lack thereof of a union between the falcons and wolves. She would need to speak with Tyrion soon, and the boy's mother as well.

A few nervous cheers arose from the crowd, but abruptly stopped when the Knight of Ninestars fell to his death and danced under the gibbet like a dying puppet.

Last came Lord Baelish, who had no words to offer, but made a tearful glance toward a well dressed young auburn haired woman in front of the throngs who could have been no more than two years younger than Dany.

She did not seem to show any sadness when the man swung at the end of the rope.

When it was over, and their legs stopped twitching, the crowds began to disperse and the prisoners where taken into one of the towers where they must have previously been held.

"What was that knight saying about the Vale?" She asked the dwarf.

"Well, it seems my loving wife had the Lord of the Eyrie in my absense, when she thought I was dead. Now I have her son, and i'm going to foster him myself, bastard or not."

"Is he really a bastard?" Dany asked and got a shrug in response. "He is one way or another. Starks, Tullys, Hardyings, Arryns, none of those houses have members with those eyes. Lady Stark knows who the real father is, especially since Harrold Hardying died mysteriously after inheriting the name of Arryn. She won't say anything though, because she grew up in King's Landing."

They entered the cavernous Hall of a Hundred Hearths as Harren the Black had called it. There were fires though, in perhaps a dozen of the hearths, but she welcomed the heat. "Mayhaps you should she the babe yourself."

A wetnurse brought the babe in question for her too see. The baby was a beautiful thing, and Dany could not help but think about Rhaego, the son she should have had. His hair was a curly Auburn, and the eyes that Tyrion fussed about, were a grayish green. While Dany realized the nessecity of fostering the boy away from the Vale, she felt a nagging voice in her head telling her how cruel it was. The voice was none other than Ser Barristan's voice who was lived on only as a ghost of her past in Mereen.

The baby's name she had learned was Jon.

The Auburn haired woman that she had seen earlier approached with eyes meant for the babe. She gave a smile meant only for the child.

"Are you his mother?" Dany asked even though she knew the answer.

The mother turned and for only a moment saw a look of fear. Then her face was one of cold disdain as she eyed Dany's cloak. The lady looked as if Dany had skinned her pet alive, and maybe she had. It was said that the children of Ned Stark, the man who had banished her bear knight to Essos, had wolves that could grow to be the size of a horse, and the animal that had died for her cloak was at least the size of a pony.

She nodded as if a single spoken word would drive her to tears.

"I am the queen; I can legitimize him for you."

The woman began to cry. "You don't want to help me. You want to take my son, my only son from me. He's only a piece to you, but for me he's so much more."

Dany could not help but feel bad for her, but Tyrion who seemed to read her mind cut off her feelings of pity.

"Cry if you must, Lady Stark. There are some here, even among my own bannerman who see you as a hero for trying to hold Harrenhal against me, while Baelish tried to slip away to Maidenpool and escape justice. I'm not separating you from the boy; you're going to Casterly Rock too, and not as my wife, but as a hostage."

Now she was in a complete state of terror.

"It's funny how the course of life goes," He continued. "I still remember that day when I talked of leaving King's Landing after Joffrey's wedding and taking you for a visit to the Rock. I could never have guessed that things would end the way they did." He smirked at her discomfort, which she was trying her best to hide, "of course, if you hate the rock that much, King's Landing or whatever remains of that shitpile on the Blackwater is still the customary place for hostages.

Dany spoke up, "Lady Sansa, are you still wed to this … man?" Tyrion's grotesque face twisted into a display of annoyance at her deliberate pause.

Sansa Stark only nodded.

"The new High Septon is currently in Duskendale, and if you wish to have your marriage annuled he will grant it. You are free to leave, if you wish."

"As for your son I hereby legitimize him as Jon Arryn by queen's decree. Your son will still be fostered at Casterly Rock, because of usurpers such as those," Dany made a broad gesture towards the gallows where four corpses were being taken down.

Her hand showed displeasure that told her that something important was going to slip through her fingers, but she didn't care, not this time.

A courtier came up by her right, and gave a quick, but graceful bow. "Your grace, Lord Edmure wishes to speak with you."

Dany welcomed the distraction, and followed the courtier to yet another person with auburn hair. He could not have seen more than five and thirty namedays, she decided.

"Your grace," he bowed. "As the rightful lord of Riverrun, I Edmure Tully, pledge fealty you Queen Daenerys, the rightful queen of seven kingdoms."

"Rise," Dany commanded. "Your house neglected its duty to my father, under no threat of harm. But, you have served me well, in bringing peace to the realm, and there is no one more deserving of the Wardenship of the Trident than you. You shall have all that was once Edmyn Tully's."

Dany was conscious of the Riverland nobles who observed. That they approved, was obvious. Naturally though were not happy to to be reminded of her father, and the duty that many had neglected. She had learned to accept that many of the Targaryens were prone to madness, but that did not change her view of the Usurper, Robert Bartheon. It did change her views of some of his dogs however.

"My queen, what do you plan to do about the northerners?" His voice was worried. Edmure Tully was known to have a concern for displaced, and for that he was well loved in these parts.

"What do you mean," There was something she had not yet heard.

She did not need to ask, for a knight who bore a burning tree on his shield, and covered in hoarfrost from a long ride was now facing her. He removed the hood the cloak over his armor revealing his copper colored hair, before took a stiff knee and spoke.

"Your grace, my scouts report that ten thousand Northmen are marching south."


	4. From Ice to Fire

**Note: Sorry for the extended wait, It's good to be back. All the distractions I've had to deal with, finals, 21st birthday, and a ton of other things are done now, so updates will be more frequent for the next month, cheers :) **

**Warning: The following chapter is not for the faint at heart. Some of you might want to stay away until chapter seven is released**

**Flashback**

It was dank down here. The ground below heated the snow up above, and the weeping of the melted snow was the only sound that was made.

Those who surrounded her came from every walk of life that could be found in the North. From the old weaver women in the tattered wool coats to the grizzled knights ringed in steel. Had it not been so desperate, they all would have looked as out of place as a lemon tree in Braavos*.

They were on the stairwell that linked the many levels of this farmiliar sight in the crypts of Winterfell and ensconced in a light colored stone. It felt like a sight from another life, and maybe it was.

She heard a rumble far beneath the many layered tomb. They had found a way in from below, and death would come soon. All knew.

A warhorn gave three quick blasts, and those around her prepared for the onslaught.

She saw the face of the man who was supposed to be her target, though the chance had not yet come. It did not truly matter, he was half a corpse himself and no one would survive even a few more days.

Footsteps came quick and closer as the man with the warhorn came into view at the edge of the great serpentine stairwell of the crypts. The footsteps ceased, but their sound did not. The echoes only gave way to the rumbling beneath the ground that made it seem as if some great battering ram was pounding the masonry below fighting to reach the surface.

Suddenly she noticed that the warmth of this place of death was gone just as a chill swept up the stairwell.

"Your grace, they're coming, they have … they have…"

A terrible high pitched shriek unlike anything she ever heard pierced the air and the chill became worse still. The solid flight of stairs beneath her that were carved into the rocks collapsed, and she fell into a pool where the now freezing water must have collected from above.

All around, an entire world seemed to collapse and her body convulsed with the frigid water. A falling boulder landed inches from her and in what seemed a lifetime later a smaller chuck of falling masonry that looked like a direwolf statue struck her on one leg.

The cold waters took away her strength to survive and she could only helplessly surrender to the inevitable. Her rapidly dimming sight was towards the heavens whose skies where clear today once all had collapsed.

The last thing she felt was the kiss of falling snow on her numbing cheek.

**Jon**

The fortress of Winterfell that he had once called home for most of his young life crowned the frozen landscape. In fact, they could see it for nearly an hour before they entered it.

They had travelled above ground for nearly three days since crossing the white knife near Castle Cerwyn, where the long caves under the barrows ended. In the castle they found modest supplies that did much to supplement their dwindling food stores.

They were ill at ease at the thought of entering his boyhood home.

The air around him reminded Jon of the time he had seen the Fist of the First Men after the battle.

Someone had been killed here, of that Jon was certain.

They passed by the Winter Town, which was deserted even in the dead of winter, and came upon the South Gate. The gate was shut.

Jon produced a grappling hook from his pack, and tied it to a stiff coil of rope. After three tries, it hooked behind the solid granite crenelations of the outer wall. Jon climbed first then Samwell. It amazed Jon that Samwell had made it. Though truth be told, he still found it strange that Sam had lost about two stone while he was in Oldtown.

He looked down the frozen solid moat and saw that the drawbridge was down. They climbed down the steps to the outer wall, and crossed the drawbridge.

Icicles hung from the open iron portcullis, like the filed teeth of a Hornfoot Cannibal which gave the entrance a sinister appearance. They passed the gate for the inner wall, trudging over the knee deep layer of snow. All around, there was no indication of the presence of any living creature.

But for Jon, the castle was alive with ghosts. To his left a smithy, but it wasn't the one where Mikken forged Stark Steel. The building he saw had been rebuilt by the Boltons after Ramsay Snow ravaged his childhood home.

As he walked in the courtyard, he remembered all the time he had spent here practicing with Robb. Between the armory and great keep, was the bridge that had only been partially repaired, with the rubble of the old one cleared away.

Winter was here and all others who had occupied this ancient castle were gone. The Krackens in the North found the land too unforgiving, and the flayed men simply rotted away.

The fiery stag, whose forlorn and bedraggled royal banner still yet flew against the bleak winter sky from the large circular drum of stone that was the great keep, bore a mute testament a man who had all but adopted the North as his new homeland. No Andal king had ever seen such respect in the eyes of Northmen as Stannis Baratheon had.

But now the falling snow silently wept over Winterfell, a blanket over their eternal slumber. Unless their bodies had given to the fire, they could rise again.

"We're being watched Jon." Suddenly he heard a noise. Looking up, a solitary raven landed on the partially built bridge. "Godswood," the raven called.

"The power the Old Gods is strong here, can you feel it Jon?"

There was a certain power in the air, that he recalled feeling whenever he was beyond the wall.

"Listen to the raven, Jon."

Reluctantly he agreed to go. He still wanted to get away from this nightmare as quick as he could.

Though the ironwood gate to the great godswood of Winterfell was damaged and yet unrepaired, the godswood itself was untouched and timeless as it had always been.

But there was something else to this place, something that remembered whatever had happened here, and a feeling of dread coiled within him. Even the Snow Shrikes, whose high, sharp trilling almost always heard whenever snow fell on the godswood were long gone. Even here it felt as if life had forsaken this land.

The pond facing the heart tree was frozen, and the snow was thick everywhere but under the trees.

Jon did feel the power in this wood, as he and Sam bowed their knees to face the heart tree of Winterfell.

_Gone … Lord … Brynden_

Jon felt his blood nearly freeze at the sound of the voice that seemed to come not only from the weirwoods but, also from the light wind that blew today. The stern face of the weirwood tree morphed into the face of a boy and confirmed Jon's belief. The face was that of a boy, one who looked much like Robb did before he left. The voice though he had not heard it for years, was unmistakeably that of Bran Stark.

_Crypts … Night … King_

"Bran, what happened to you?"

But the light wind only seemed to die, and the face he had glimpsed briefly, was gone just as soon as it had formed.

They left the godswood, with haste and more questions than they had anwsers.

_Who who is Lord Brynden_? _What is this thing about the crypts?_

Jon had been having many nightmares about the final resting place of the lords of Winterfell, and they came more often since heading north. Something inside of him was calling him to that forbidding underground tomb of many levels

"We have to go to through the crypts?"

"Is that where we find it Sam?"

Sam nodded, "The manuscript in the Citadel said that Spring of Time was in a cave underground and could be accessed through the path of the dead," It said the crypt went down many levels into the Earth.

It was true, Jon knew. He had never gone more than three levels of that place, and that was because he once took a dare from Robb.

Jon could always feel the eyes of the Kings of Winter who never seemed to like his presence.

When they arrived at the dreaded sight, there was no entrance to the crypts; there was only a gaping pit that looked as if it had burst asunder. The entrance had been destroyed, and the earth had sunk between the North Gate almost to the backside of the guards hall. Looking into the hole that cut across the many tiered tombs, he saw the ruins of the great crypts, of many levels ruptured by whatever great force had broken loose here.

Sam kicked against a gargoyle in the lichyard outside the first keep that stood vigilant and undisturbed by all the horror below. The statue didn't budge. Satisfied, Sam tied the rope they used to scale the outer wall of Winterfell to the Gargoyle and gave it a tug. The rope tightened and Sam looked down into the void as if he were about to jump off the top of the wall.

Jon hesitated for only a moment before he took the rope, "I'll go first; I can climb faster than you can if something evil is down there." Jon regretted those words the moment they left his mouth. _Of course something bad is down there._ Sam gave Jon a look that suggested he knew what Jon was thinking.

He secured his pack, and rapelled down the line.

Jon saw levels below that he had never visited. Towards the bottom of the pit, he saw the rubble of many stone direwolves and their masters littered across the floor of the great cavern below. A faint sickly light seemed to come from within the cavern and shone past the faint plumes of steam that came from the warm heart of Winterfell.

Though it was considerably warmer down here, Jon was slow and deliberate with his movements. After several weeks traveling north in cold weather worse than anything he remembered north of the Wall, breaking a sweat could be a death sentence.

Right now Jon felt a queer sense of fear. What made it queer was that he didn't know what really unnerved him about this place.

Was it the fact that the familiar settings of Winterfell seemed so desolate and alien? Was it the nightmares he was having about this place? Was it the feeling that the enemy was down there waiting for him to descend into darkness. He could almost hear voices in his head, warning him of the dangers that awaited him.

Sam was right, the Old Gods were trying to tell him things, but he could not understand them.

The descent was longer than the rope, so four levels below the surface; he landed by the edge of whatever cataclysm had happened here. He took his rope and hooked the end, to the broken statue of a long dead Stark.

After giving the floor a brief survey, he tugged the rope several times quickly and waited for Sam to come down.

He came down, and they surveyed the tombs whose complex was greater than Winterfell itself above it. Sam was unnerved too Jon did not fail to notice, but he was also in silent awe at this place.

"The books in the vault said that Winterfell was built over a hot springs and a series of caves. I didn't believe it, and I still can't, this place is larger than the castle above."

They came upon the shattered stairwell that was used to reach this place in better times. Though it had crumbled greatly, the stairs were functional for at least twenty feet above them, and many more below. They descended carefully, one at a time. Jon felt a small bit of shame that Sam knew his way around as much as he did, and that was from some book that a maester wrote two hundred years ago.

A small pool was seen three levels down near the edge of the great hole in the crypts overlooking the cavern under the tombs where the great hot springs were. He remembered seeing this from above.

Curious, Jon took a look. He had heard a tale from Old Nan once, about two springs under Winterfell. One was the great spring that heated Winterfell during times such as these. But nearby there was a smaller spring called the accursed spring that stood on the lowest level of the crypts which were carved into the edges of the cavern itself, which was now sunken and much of it had collapsed.

It was accursed, because of some evil magic that had supposedly fallen into the spring. Though the surroundings were warm, the spring stayed cold as if to defy the warm, moist atmosphere of the crypts.

Within the spring, he saw a single body at the bottom. The cold does not give up its dead, if they are under the sea, the men at Eastwatch used to say. The frigid waters by Eastwatch ensured that any man who went a watery grave would never come back up, as they would in warmer waters. They had proven wrong in time when Eastwatch by Sea was attacked by an army of wights coming diectly out of the sea.

He looked closer at the body and noticed that it had been well preserved. The corpe was also pinned down by a broken statue that had fallen from some tomb. So desolate was Winterfell, that this the first trace he had seen of human presence.

"Do you want to look at it Sam? How he die?"

Sam shuddered visibly at the sight of it, but put his hands into the shivering water. "It's a girl Jon," he said as he pushed aside the stone direwolf. Jon with his longer reach moved his arms to pull the body out...

And gave a sharp cry of pain, pulling his hands from the water quickly.

He saw a deep cut that went from his thumb past his wrist. Blood began to well up in the cut across his burned hand.

Samwell Tarly's eyes went wide, and pulled out his Qohorik dagger. The body that had been under the water was standing up now, the water just barely over its waste.

It was a girl, just like Sam said it was. She was beautiful too, with her bright blue eyes only adding to her malevolent beauty. What got his attention though, was the blade she held.

It was a tall thin blade much like those in Braavos. He had even had one made for Arya in better days.

The wight gave him a look that chilled his spine. The wight knew him, but he didn't know her, unless... _No, no please no_.

She was tall and thin when she died, even though he did not recognize the face, it was that moment that he knew who she was.

Without warning, the wight made a clumsy charge and missed the thrust.

Sam lunged from behind with a torch, but the wight was sopping wet, and did not catch fire. Instead she turned towards Sam the Slayer, who was held a dagger and a torch that didn't work against wet wights.

Jon drew Longclaw, and without thinking thrust into her between the two shoulders.

Valyrian steel must have indeed been dragonsteel, for the wight screamed as smoke emerged from her insides. Moments later he saw wight simply crumble. It was if its skin was just turning to ash.

As the wight writhed on the floor turning into a pile of ash, he suddenly realized that he was crying. _I'm sorry little sister, but you died long ago._

He reached down muss the wet scalp that had not yet turned to ash, _goodbye_.

"Jon!" Sam called out, "they're down here."

A dozen wights lumbered into view, standing between them and the way to the hot springs. No doubt the noise had attracted them.

At the head of the horde of undead, one wight produced a blade. He saw the sword before he saw the bearer. The cavern became alive with light as he raised the flaming sword that bore no heat. Beneath the raised sword was the ghastly spectacle that wore a crown of flames that seemed to dance under the light of his blade. His eyes were bright with malice and eerie beauty all the same, and his figure cast no shadow.

"And now it ends," Jon felt the despair in his voice as they closed in.

"No!" Sam bellowed, and his scream echoed throughout the crypts, "Now it begins."

They came together in a rush of steel, shadow, and flame.

* No, I do not buy into the Illemonati bullshit about Dany being raised anywhere but Braavos


	5. The blood of dragons

I met a red priest who looked in the fires and said:

Two tall and trunkless legs of stone stand in a cobbler's square

Nearby in the broken ground, half sunken in frozen mire, a shattered visage lies

Whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell its scuptor well his passions read which yet survive

stamped on the lifeless things

A hand that mocked and a heart made of stone

And on the pedestal these words stand alone

I am Aegon the Conqueror, king of kings

look upon my work you mighty and despair

But only ruin remains

To surround the decay of that colossal wreck

Boundless and bare

And the long and level snows stretch far away

* * *

><p><strong>Daenerys<strong>

The skies were clear this night. She wasn't quite sure what to call night and what to call day. The sun did not come out until what should have been mid day, and only stayed up for a few hours before disappearing.

They were camped at the Inn of the Kneeling Man. It was no more than three days march from Riverrun as the scouts reported. The fortress was well supplied with food stores from the Reach and the West in preparation of her campaign against the North, Edmure Tully had informed her.

He had marched ahead to his home, with several hundred of his best troops. She would wait here until the northmen across the frozen Red Fork of the Trident made their move.

From her room at the second floor of the inn, she looked out across the rivers at the northern camp. The fires that went up were too numerous for her to count.

For the moment, Dany could only stare at the vast northern host across the river.

She had decided to wait for their people to come to parley, just as Aegon the Conquerer had nearly three centuries from today.

But the northern lords did not come when the sun rose, and it set without seeing a single soul near the riverbank, yet the fires seemed to grow bigger. The camp seemed to pulse with activity as hundreds of torches were placed near the perimeter. Looking through her Myrish Eye, she could see the sentries standing past the fires. Dany spied a large force suddenly leaving the camp presumably for a patrol.

"They are inviting you to make your move," the Imp was rife with impatience, and so were many of her suppporters she did not doubt. They were eager to camp in Lord Tully's river stronghold, which was well supplied for waiting out the harsh weather.

The dark clouds that she had seen in the distance well beyond the northern camp, were slowly getting closer. Soon a storm would come.

It was the hour of the wolf when Dany lost her patience and decided to make her move. Before leaving, she ordered lord Smallwood to prepare to cross the river if the need arose.

As Dany climbed Rhaegal and lifted off, she could see a few men over the frozen river prodding the ice ahead of them before moving foward.

Rhaegal soared over the camp and made motioned the dragon to make a low pass over the camp before descending to remind the northmen who they were dealing with. The fires that had burned bright earlier had died down with the fall of the sun, but she did not see many tents though, _They are not as big as they appear._

Dany landed on a bare patch of ground and leapt off Rhaegal landing on the hard, frozen ground.

The sentries nearby for some reason stood erect and gave no indication that they had just seen a dragon fly over their tent.

_Who ignores the dragon? _Some hated her others loved her, but in the land of the Andals nobody ignored her.

She approached a sentry stationed at the nearest fire walking down a beaten path, the river to her back.

Dany felt something light, most likely the protruding roots of a tree cut down to a tiny stump give way under her feet...

And saw a flash of movement when the sentry must have spotted her. He leveled something at her and instinctively she ducked in time hear the quiet scream of rusted metal and miss the _thrum_ of a crossbow bolt fly over her head.

Dany drew the Qohorik longsword that once belonged to the dreaded older brother of Victarion Greyjoy. The blade which was easily the finest weapon in her armory had been given as gratitude from maester Samwell of the Night's Watch. Though such men were supposed to forget their families, he had begged for her to forgive his younger brother Dickon who had been taken prisoner after the death of Randyll Tarly who had spearheaded the enemy vanguard at Tumbleton.

Though she had also recovered Blackfyre that day from the false dragon, the ancestral sword of House Targaryen, the bastard blade once carried by Aegon the Conqueror, was to big for her to wield effectively, especially on dragonback.

He was not at all bothered by his father's death she remembered. It was even rumored that lord Tarly hated the citadel so much that he tried to kill his first son to erase the shame brought to the house of Tarly.

Dany understood the mistrust of maesters well enough, but his son was different. He was not one of the Grey Sheep who had poisoned Drogon.

She charged the sentry sword drawn and easily decapitated the sentry with a single blow.

And heard the splinter of wood, she had been played by the Northmen. The sentry it turned out was not a sentry at all, but a board of Sentinel Pine.

The crossbow that had shot at her, was only an old hunting crossbow attached to a pole that lowered with the help of an rusted iron hinge. _It's a trap,_ Dany realized. She sheathed her sword and carefully retraced her path as quickly as possible. Dany ascended Rhaegal to call off anyone that decided to cross the river.

"Dracarys," Dany called out as Rhaegal lifted off. She felt a surge of heat as smoke seemed to escaped from the green scales, and a stream of fire on the empty camp, destroying any other traps in this place.

The night was steadily getting colder, but it didn't matter, she rode fire and death made flesh.

* * *

><p><strong>Sansa<strong>

She had never seen her mother's birthplace, but now she was resting with her son in the room that was once her mother's. Sansa had arrived here last night with Jon as part of uncle Edmure's party.

A horn from outside blew, and interrupted the morning tranquility. She knew it was morning, because the sky was beginning to lighten up outside the window. The days were much shorter now and she could now see why those who followed the Lord of Light viewed each day as a gift.

She dressed simply, and left her chambers to visit Jon. She felt a strange kind of guilt at the thought of his name. She had wanted sons named Robb, Eddard, and Brandon, but Littlefinger had reminded her that her son would need a name that put aside accusations of illegitimacy. The name Jon could easily have been named after Jon Arryn, but she had been thinking of the solemn boy she called half-brother and even more about how he came to be a bastard. She had later realized that reminders of the Stark name still hung over him until his execution.

She remembered the strange mix of feeling that she had when he fell to his death at the end of a rope. Although she was outwardly calm, she felt a queer sense of freedom, a false one. She also felt a strange sense of loss. This was the man who had destroyed her childhood, and had been her greatest mentor all the same.

The Targaryen queen had offered her a chance to leave for Duskendale a make fresh start with her life. She was proven fertile, and many powerful lords would have begged for her hand in marriage.

Sansa no longer had a claim, that anybody would wed her for. Rickon Stark, had emerged from hiding on the island of Skagos. She had never seen Rickon Stark since leaving Winterfell for King's Landing nearly five years ago, but he had a direwolf at his side that only Starks had.

_At least until they are taken from a Stark_. It had been a long time since she had seen Arya or her direwolf, but Sansa had no doubt that Daenerys Targaryen was wearing the cloak of the direwolf that she had named Nymeria.

The thought of it still made her tummy flutter nervously. Still, she had made the descision to stay with her dwarf husband, and more importantly her son. It was fitting that Jon was his name because the thought Jon Snow was what convinced her to stay. None of her children would grow up without a mother.

Not a day passed when she did not think of her son's true namesake. _We all become the things we despise_, Tyrion had once commented. The thought made her more bitter still. He had become his father, the man who ruled the seven kingdoms with blood, iron and gold, and she had become the mother to a bastard.

Sansa gently stroked the hair of her baby boy and remembered why she had made the choices that she did in the last year.

When she was done, she looked out the nursery window and saw the drawbridge down, and an army marching in. It took a second look to realize that many of the banners being carried into the stronghold were northern banners.

Her heart leapt at the sight, and without thinking put on her heavy furs.

At the entrance to the triangular keep of Riverrun, she saw a boy at the head of the party who reminded her so much of Bran the last time she had seen him. At his side was indeed a direwolf. Behind him was a vast host, not just soldiers, but many half starved smallfolk.

The boy looked dazed when he dismounted and saw her.

"Mother?" The lord of Winterfell looked like a lost child, but she did not know what to tell him.

"She is your sister," an older man with a crude doublet of a black ship and an Onion gently spoke to the boy. And the man over there is your uncle Edmure.

Her uncle wore a bittersweet smile at the sight of his nephew.

"You have my thanks Davos Seaworth for bringing my nephew here to safety, the house of Tully owes you a debt of honor."

The expression on Lord Seaworth's face was polite but clearly grave.

Edmure Tully took the hint and ordered a pair of retainers to escort Rickon to his quarters.

"My lord, I know this is asking much of you, but the men need shelter."

Uncle Edmure, took a moment to contemplate the request. "The men you bring here Lord Davos, are not just my nephew's people, but also some of my bannermen, my people."

As her uncle promised, many were put in the feasting hall of the castle. And she saw many familiar faces that had visited Winterfell when she was a child.

The young man who sat next to her was a very handsome man hair the color of honey and beautiful violet eyes they were of the same age give or take two years. He introduced herself as Edrick Dayne, the lord of Starfall and the new sword of the morning.

"It is not often that I meet a child of Ned Stark these days." Her heart almost skipped a beat at his mention of her father almost as much as the solemn tone of his voice. "It seems that when I least expect it, I meet one, I was a milk brother to Jon Snow when I was as little as your own Jon."

"Do you know who his mother was?"

Lord Dayne looked around and showed slights signs of discomfort.

"She was, a common girl by the name of Wylla, or so my aunt Allyria says. The same woman would later be my own wet nurse."

"My lord of Dayne," a thin voice interjected. "It has been so long since I have seen a Sword of the Morning, do you carry it with you?"

The stranger had a cavernous face and a body so thin, that for a moment she mistook him for a starving peasant. A trident was slung across his back. She had seen these kind of people only once. He was a crannogman.

"Who am I speaking too?" Ned Dayne recogized the man's lordly speech but did not know who he was speaking too.

"I am Howland Reed, the lord of Greywater Watch, I was there in the rebellion when your uncle fell."

"So you were the other man who came back with Lord Stark to Starfall?" Ned Dayne asked.

"That's right, we came back with your uncle's body and the sword you now carry. Your Aunt Ashara gave lord Stark, a wet nurse for his … son Jon, before she jumped from Starfall."

Howland Reed covered mouth with a hand, Sansa had long since learned that subtle movements made by speaker said just as much as their words, and his movement told her that Lord Reed was trying to control his expression.

He turned towards Sansa, "and you must be the lady Sansa."

"I am," her response was polite.

"I am told that you have a son of your own named Jon."

"I do."

Howland looked at her thoughtfully, "You named him well, my lady."

Later after the feast, she asked him about the story of Jon.

"The story of how he came into the world, is a truly painfull tale. It is one your boy's namesake may never hear and that is a good thing."

"But how is it good for a child to grow up a bastard with only one parent to be raised with?"

"Because he grew up believing one great lie, one that if he learned the truth would destroy him. Men fought and died for him before he was born yet he spent his life treated as a nobody. If Jon Snow knew the truth, it would tear him apart. He would become bitter and angry towards everything he ever knew."

"And what is the truth?" Sansa had already realized that there was more to the story than what the young man from Starfall knew.

"You shall hear of it soon, when more of his kin are present."

* * *

><p><strong>Daenerys<strong>

She flew hard to reach Riverrun, the Northern army was somewhere west of that was easy to find, she only had to follow the last she arrived at the fork in the river, where the fortress of river sandstone stood.

Tyrion Lannister led the main force west, but they would arrive within a day. Her cavalry, led by Ser Addam Marbrand, would be less than half a day's ride in this weather, so long as they outpaced the storm to the north that threatened to cross the river.

Dany had been duped into believing that the enemy wanted to cross the river at the Inn of the kneeling man.

That they were desperate to cross the river was obvious. Whispers had been heard of strange creatures of ice taking residence in the ruins of the North.

The North, last she had heard was ruled by Stannis Baratheon, and later Jon Snow, the bastard son of Eddard Stark. The bastard even had the nerve to request that she help his people fight these strange creatures, while she warred in the Reach.

She had many problems, but the pleas of a usurper's son was not one of them. She had a throne to win and a people to free.

Dany reigned in Rhaegal, and descended on the castle landing on the roof of its keep. She leapt off her last dragon, and saw a haggard watchman trying to hold in his fear.

She quickly forgot about his presence, for a knight approached, for only a knight would brave the cold in a coat of heavy mail. His helm which contrasted greatly with the rest of his armor was a well made basinet wrought into the shape of a bull.

The knight gave a casual bow that suggested he had earned his knighthood, before removing his helm. Much to her surprise, the man behind the helm appeared to be at an age with her. His eyes were blue, his hair black and curled and on his chin were the beginnings of a coarse dark beard.

"Your grace," His voice suggested that he had grown up in a poorer section of King's Landing. "I am Gendry of Hollow Hill."

"We didn't think you'd be here so early, how far out is your army?"

"less than a days march." Dany spoke with only a small feeling of overconfidence. "I need an audience with Lord Tully."

She motioned for Rhaegal to stay, and the knight escorted her to the stairwell.

Half an hour later she got the audience she requested, except that it was in the great hall of Riverrun rather than it's lordly solar.

"We did not yet expect your arrival, your grace. You came as I was holding court for the day." His voice was slightly irratated.

Around her were the people of the Riverlands, and some Westermen too. Much to her surprise though was the presence of Northmen.

Their target had been Riverrun after all, and Edmure Tully was clearly sheltering them, sheltering an enemy.

She had already taken the bread and salt offered to her before she saw the Northmen though and remembered its meaning.

The sight of the hagard men of the North, was a surprisingly frightening sight. Their old grey eyes were as hard as flint and seemed determined to remind her of her sins.

"Your grace, I must ask to come to terms with my nephew's people. They have done you no wrong, and for the good of the realm, I beg you to make your peace with them, before Lord Lannister's host returns."

Dany pondered that statement, ever since she was a child, she had held a strong dislike of the house of Stark, one that still endured. When the dragons returned every house in the either bent the knee or was reduced to ash. Even fake dragons got support in the war.

But the northerners had stubbornly clung to Baratheon rule through it all.

"You have the chance to bend the knee to me now. I only require that your armies return to your homes, and that all noble houses offer their heirs to me as hostages."

Dany could feel the mood in the halls grow cold, at the sound of her demands.

"I will also take your lord of Winterfell, whoever he may be as a hostage for the support of false usurpers, and the bastard of Eddard Stark as well for lies you have spoken about my brother Rhaegar."

An eerie silence pregnant with hostility prevaded the halls, until a single man walked towards her.

He was a thin man with unremarkable features, but there was something about this man that had every eye on him.

"Are you as mad as Rhaegar, are you as mad as your own father." His voice though scornful was quiet and one that those in the hall stayed quiet to hear. "Do you not know what the Starks suffered at the blood of the Dragon. And for what purpose, the blind obsession of a madman to produce another heir on a woman who was not his."

He spit on the sandstone floor. "Even during your wars you ignored, you ignored our pleas to help because of your foolish hatred of the Starks."

Dany made her voice heard, "I refused to deal with the bastard son of usurper's dog. If he is here I will have him delivered in chains for this defiance."

Suddenly the hall shook with laughter at the remark. "Find him if you can!" A young girl sporting a Merman on her courtly clothes called out. "He's not here."

_They would regret laughing at the dragon,_ Dany decided.

"I should not be surprised at how you speak of Jon Snow, Even in Greywater Watch, I have heard about how you treat your blood relations."

" The mummer's dragon was no real dragon, even with a young dragon! No more than this Jon Snow you speak of!" Dany responded with the fury a rudely awoken dragon.

"That is where you ere, you fool. I was there when he was born.

The speaker in the tattered coat turned around slowly and raised his voice ever so slightly.

"Myself and six others fought three knights of the Kingsguard, to rescue Lyanna Stark. Only myself and Lord Stark survived that day, but we only found her dying of a birthing fever."

The lord of Greywater watch, turned back to face her.

"The boy whose desperately needed help you refused to give, was your own nephew!"

She heard a series of muffled gasps in the hall at this announcement. Personally Dany was did yet know how to respond to the news.

"He was the prized child of Rhaegar that so many died for not even knowing of his existence. How many more must die before you overcome your hatred?"

She was speechless, and had she not heard the distant shriek of a dragon she would have been at a loss for words.

Edmure Tully who sat at the head of the dais had tried his best to keep his expressions neutral. "You grace, is your dragon in need of food?"

A weak reply left her mouth as a sudden chill passed her by, "That was not my dragon."

**Note: Man, that chapter was a monster to write, so much insanity. I just want to say that i'm pleasantly surprised at the support i've already gotten for this story. considering that it only has five chapters so far. Only one more before I end act one.**

**the poem at the beginning is a tribute to the ****poem Ozymandias (the Percy Shelly Version, I have planned a separate tribute for the Horace Smith version in "The Game Ends")**


	6. Fire, Brimstone and Ice

**Samwell**

They came together in a rush of steel, shadow, and flame.

Jon quickly thrust Longclaw into the closest wight and promptly withdrew it in time to meet the blade of another wight, not even taking the time to ensure that it caught fire.

Then, a pair of wights lumbered towards him. Sam held his longsword in his right hand and the torch in his left. He met the first one head on forcing down the dead man's shattered steel, before stepping on his foot and forcing the torch onto it's neck.

The wight caught fire instantly, and Sam hurriedly stepped away to meet the next one.

He blocked a wicked chop, but was forced to take a step back.

The wight followed through, and overextended itself. It made a clumsy thrust that was easily avoided. Sam brought his own longsword down on the vulnerable arm severed it as if he cutting through cheese.

The sword, as well as the hand attached to it fell and hit the ground with a clang. For a barest second, the wight looked surprised. That was when he struck, his torch made contact with the stump of an arm and the wight shrieked with the flames licking his arm.

The wights dropped all around them to fire one by one as the battle raged.

As he felled the last one facing him, he saw Jon outmanuvered with a wight to his back. Without thinking, he rushed the wight with all his strength...

But his body was not fast enough to prevent the ghastly being from making a wicked upward slash on Jon's back upper leg that cut through his layers.

Still, Sam hurled himself at the wight and bought it down, and finished it with a kiss of his torch.

When Jon drove his Valyrian blade into the wight that had been Stannis Baratheon, which was the last wight standing, He gave a loud cry of pain. Jon Snow clutched his right arm in pain, and fell to his knees leaving Longclaw in Stannis the wight.

Samwell surveyed the surroundings and after making sure that no more wights were present, he knelt where beside Jon.

"Sam," he called out with pain in his voice. "I'm hurt, Needle, it burns." His friend offered the injured arm with a slight clumsiness. He examined the arm, and sure enough, the wound he had taken from the wight under the cold spring, was festering.

Sam looked for the blade that had done the deed, and quickly found it within an arm's reach. Acting on a suspicion, he sniffed the blade.

"Jon," Sam did his best to suppress the concern in his voice. "This blade has Greycap. Most of it was thinned off from all that time in the pond, but Greycap is sticky underwater, and there's still enough on here to kill a man within a few hours."

"Can it be treated Sam?"

He shook his head, the only thing you can do for it is to develop an immunity to the poison before enough of it is in your body." He had learned about poison in his medicine link. It never failed to amaze Sam that he had learned to murder and to heal in the process of forging a single link.

"Get up Jon Snow, if you can."

He tried to rise, but failed. "Sam, a wight got me from behind, on the left leg, it's a long cut and I might bleed out before the poison takes me."

They would have to hurry. The only path was forward, and it's end would soon be in sight, Sam decided.

"Do you remember the summer, Jon? We'll be seeing it soon. You can even see it in the Reach; we can savor the warm sun of Oldtown as we take cups of delicious summerwine, and we'll walk past the endless rows of ripe peaches together. Have you ever tasted a peach picked fresh off the trees, Jon Snow?"

"No Sam, I don't even remember the last piece of fruit I ate."

"Then let's go friend, we're almost there."

Jon tried to get up once more, but his legs were too weak.

Sam gripped Jon by his arms, and heard a gasp of pain, as he helped Jon stand.

He saw the cut, and sure enough, he would bled out in minutes. Sam already knew that he had nothing in his pack to cover the wound.

With Jon's left arm over his back, they made their way to the stairs, carved into the ageless stone, and into the cavern itself.

The faint acrid smell of brimstone filled this place and the air was rife with the light humid steam that emerged from some of the ponds. The quiet sound of the warm springs that had become the heart of this dying place could be heard, a heart that still beat on when its owner stopped fighting to live.

On the rocky ground were shattered tombs that had fallen from above that dotted the solid dry ground and the springs alike. And down in the the center of the cavern was great pit unlike any other. Though much bigger than any other spring, no steam arose from its waters. It was what had been known as the Fountain of Time in the dusty tome he read in the Citadel's Vault.

They navigated their way though a maze of rubble to reach it. When they finally did, He helped Jon lay down. He was losing blood, and his movements were becoming disoriented.

He pulled several layers of furs and leather from Jon, and heard his friend exhale in delirious relief. They had both entered this place heavy laden for cold above, but now, they were overheating part in the haste to get down here, and partly because the heat was pleasantly warm here in bowels of Winterfell.

_At least __our __sweat __will not __turn into a layer of ice down here_, thought Sam, as he stripped Jon down to his small clothes. He then turned and did the same, but he had only taken off his thick overcoat before something caught his eyes.

Samwell Tarly had never seen a dragon egg, but he knew enough about them to know what he was seeing. It was a queer thing to think about, but he recalled Archmaester Gyldayn's lauded account of the Dance of Dragons, the one that happened nearly two centuries ago. Gyldayn had been wrong about many things in his account, and as Maester Samwell later learned, he most likely left some stuff out of his account by deliberate omission. The Dance of Dragons, he would later learn would never have become the war it became had not Otto Hightower used the order for the gain of the Greens.

He had also dismissed the idea that a cache of Dragon eggs laid by _Vermax, _were hidden beneath Winterfell when Jacerys Velaryon rode here to gain the support of the North in what would become the pact of ice and fire. Though Jacerys died shortly after the pact was made, the pact lived on and eventually helped see Aegon III the Dragonsbane on the throne, despite the shadow Cregan Stark had put over King's Landing.

Sam had no doubt, that the ice dragons he had heard about were hatched here. He was still purplexed however, how could a newly hatched dragon have caused so much damage leaving this place taking a straight shot to the surface.

"Who are you, why are you following me!" Sam returned his wandering mind to the present situation, as he heard Jon scream in agonized fear.

He hurried over to Jon and shook him. "Jon, you're having a fever … get out of it." The distant look in Jon's grey eyes was the most frightening thing of the whole ordeal. They were consumed with madness and fear, as his body grew faint from loss of blood and the poison that was going to work on him faster because of it, and Greycap did not bleed out easily, as Archmaester Ebrose once lectured.

But soon he recovered from the madness, at least for now.

"Sam?" for a moment Jon just stared at one of the many fallen statues.

"I saw someone, Sam. It was a woman, she wore a dress and it was covered in blood."

"You're having lucid visions Jon, you're delirious with pain and its only going to get worse."

Sam pulled out one of his Qohorik daggers and dipped it in the spring before pressing the blade on the Jon's bloodsoaked breeches. After ensuring that blood was on both sides, he handed it to Jon.

"Take this, its forged with sorcery in Qohor. If this works the way I think it will, we'll be back about 296 years after Aegon's Conquest."

"Find me as soon as I take charge of Horn Hill. I'll send a raven to Winterfell when I do."

"How will you get Horn Hill?" Jon asked. Sam politely looked away as Jon fumbled at his bloodied smallclothes. He had told Jon earlier that it would work better if Jon had nothing on him but the bloody dagger, especially if anything else had blood on it.

"That's my problem." Sam heard himself reply automatically with a coldness that surprised even him, as he removed his maester's chain and then his tunic.

Jon gave him a strange look, "I know that your father tried wanted you dead for wearing a chain, but what kind of man did the Citadel turn you into?"

_A healer and a trained killer among other things, _thought Sam.

_"_When you reach the past, can you find a better place for the dragon eggs down here?_" _Jon tried to rise, but stumbled and Sam helped him to the fountain before giving him a push.

He saw a strange current pull Jon under the water.

Sam stripped himself of his remaining garments, and jumped in surrendering his body to the strange undercurrent in the spring that pulled him underwater. He could feel his eyesight dimming fading to darkness, before he saw a blinding light.

And so they pressed on, their bodies vessels against the current of time, thrown into the past.

* * *

><p><strong>Dany<strong>

She had never felt a cold like this, the fury of the winds alone bit sharp and cold as knife. She flew across the frozen fork in the river on her dragon, the northern winds blowing against her.

Dany saw the three dragons that had screeched several times today. None of them were bigger than Rhaegal, but they were ready for her and they were three to her one. Ice Dragons, the Northmen had called them, were ice made flesh. The direct opposite of what she rode.

Daenerys Targaryen had agreed to defeat an army whose existence she still did not truly believe to earn the fealty of the northmen.

The stirrups in her specialized saddle she twisted, her arms she wrapped around the reigns extra tight, and she lowered her profile towards her last dragon. Rhaegal knew the signal, and sped forward at redoubled speed outpacing the ice dragons from above. And when she was certain that she was behind them, Dany tugged upwards at the reigns causing Rhaegal to ascend the skies.

Dany turned her head upwards out the upper corners of her eyes, she saw them gracefully turn around mid-dive and level their flight towards her. Her eyes went back to the saddle and she tapped her dragon with both legs telling him to barrel roll before leveling off her flight now that she had height over the enemies.

Below she saw their ice dragons and their equally icy riders. Until now, they flew in a formation with the shape of a V, but now it broke up as they split directions. When they broke off, the one in the center made a straight shot towards her and would easily reach her she knew. These dragons though smaller, were much more nimble as she could now see.

The others ascended as well hoping to catch up with her form behind. With their formation divided, Dany motioned Rhaegal into a dive before kicking him on his left, and shifting her weight slightly in that direction in anticipation of the manuever.

_Dracarys,_ she shouted, as Rhaegal dove head on for the nearest ice dragon. Smoke rose from his scales and fire erupted from his jaws in a dazzling stream of light and death that nearly blinded her in the night sky.

A loud painfull screech cut through the cold air as dragonflame hit home. The ice dragon was stunned was stunned at the least, and dying at the most she guessed. The Qohorik blade that she wore at her side was drawn and she held it out as she went past the nearest enemy. The blade struck the ice dragon with such a force that she feared it would be knocked from her hand, but she held on as the sword made a thin cut along the dragon's belly. Dany felt a faint trail of heat from the path of the blade.

She looked to the sight that awaiting her of the remaining two bearing down on her. The one on the left opened his mouth, and Dany instinctively motioned Rhaegal to make a left turn.

Her dragon obeyed and did a roll that barely dodged an incoming stream of looked like mist coming fast and deadly. Even though she avoided it, she could still feel it bite sharp and cold as a leech. As Rhaegal flew with his back to the distant ground below, the dragon on the right passed her by, its rider almost an arms reach away.

For what seemed an eternity, she stared at the rider, a being of inhuman beauty whose reflective armor shone and beamed different shades of the same icy blue. Its eyes were the worst part, they bore malice that did not even seem possible for any human.

When she was almost directly above, she recovered her senses, and drove Rheagal down on the ice dragon's tail, while she lowered her sword to brace against the saddle. His jaw snapped shut and he made contact with the end of the other dragon's tail. The impact jarred both riders.

The ice dragon could not get away from the bigger creature and was dragged down by its tail. Dany rubbed Rhaegal past the edge of the saddle he released the dragon in his teeth. Then, Rhaegal flew upwards as directed and took a bite out of the dragon's neck.

But she saw her fatal error coming too late, the third dragon came down on her's before she could avert it, and snapped its jaws around Rhaegal's back behind her saddle. A sickening _crack_ was heard that only could have been her dragon's spine. _No, this cannot be happening_.

Dany's eyes went to the blade, and quickly untangled her herself from the saddle and made a daring jump up the neck of dying Rhaegal and tried to leap onto another an ice dragon as the strength left the jaws of her own.

She froze for a moment when she realized she was toe-to-toe with an Other, and in that moment she lost her footing with a lurch that came from Rhaegal opening his jaws letting go, and stumbled. As she fell she attemped to stick the sword to the dragon, but her attmept was in vain and the sword swung wildly until it met her left arm drawing much blood. She felt herself falling, and she heard an ugly cry leave her mouth that was her own.

The Mother of Dragons looked down below at the river that was beneath her and getting larger. There were many holes in the ice, and she armies of the undead crossing the remaing ice. She saw the fires that flew with the arrows, and towards the wall, she saw them scaling the walls themselves.

The last thing she felt was the cold water that bit like a thousand swords. The last thing she saw was the dark ice beneath the water before her broken body lost consciousness and transitioned from into darkness than light.

* * *

><p><em>Some say the world will end in fire,<em>

_Some say in ice._

_From what I've tasted of desire_

_I hold with those who favor fire._

_But if it had to perish twice,_

_I think I know enough of hate_

_To say that for destruction ice_

_Is also great_

_And would suffice._

**And so concludes the finale for act one, do expect me to go back and polish this section, before I open the next can of worms. The poem at the bottom, is course the unaldulterated version of "Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost (don't pretend you don't know why it's there). For those who found the last few chapters difficult, the next act is going to be a lot more fun not to mention longer.**


	7. Act II: Shadows of future past

**Flashforward**

In his right hand, was a blue winter rose, the moist green cut at it's bottom, indicating that it was picked not to long ago. In his left, was a piece of parchment that had been wrapped around the thorny stem. Both had had found on the bed, atop a roughspun wool blanket dyed black.

Only two words were on the parchment, but they were enough to make his heart lurch when he read them against the faint light of a small chamber stove, whose fire was still burning and seemed to cling to the fleeting feeling of life in this room.

Instinctively, his hands curled and their grip tightened. The parchment crumpled, but the thorns on the rose, just simply entered the flesh of his palm.

He winced in pain, and cast the now bloody winter rose into the stove in his attempt to get it out of his skin.

He could not explain why he felt so bad about the flower, there were many others to be found in the glass gardens, and it was a minor problem compared to the meanings of the note. Perhaps it was just an omen of some sort that made feel concerned. For a moment, the blue rose dotted with his blood, seemed unaffected by the dimming fire that surrounded it. A few seconds later, it burst into flames almost spontaneously, and it was as if new life had been brought to the flames within the stove.

Tears came freely now at the thoughts of it all. He transferred the paper to right hand which was now bleeding profusely. His left arm wiped away the salty tears. His right hands gripped the note, as if it was worth his life, and maybe it truly was.

Once his tears were wiped away and his vision clear, the parchment was covered in blood. Even though the light from the fire was still a little brighter from the fuel of a blue winter rose, he could no longer read the writing which was now soaked in dark crimson red.

_Forgive me ... I have failed._

* * *

><p><strong>Jon<strong>

He must have died, that was the first thing he thought when he saw the light. The pain inflicted on him from the Greycap, no longer plauged him, but his mind was still muddled. He had seen some terrifying things underneath his boyhood home, and that was before the poison had gone to work on his mind causing bouts of mad visions.

He could now feel his mind clearing up like the passing of a great storm. The blinding light overhead receded and he saw the night sky. In the place of the light, strange trails of lights reached across the clear starry sky. It stretched on as far as it clear and maybe further still, with the illuminated clouds in the far in the distance that seemed to form a peculiar ring around him could , Hues of green, blue, and purple like some great banner fwaving itself against the constellations. From where he lie, he could spot the crown, the ghost, the sword of the morning, he even saw the moonmaid, and noticed that the red wanderer, or the theif as the free-folk called it was visible here. The last time it was this bright, was the night he captured Ygritte.

Below the stars, were the high reaching walls of the icy mountains, more forbidding than even the Frostfangs that could be seen on both sides of him, their peaks like the twisted spires of ruined castles with a trail ahead and between them that formed a pass.

He tried to move, and became conscious of the blanket of snow that he was wearing and the bed of ice beneath him. He shook it off, all the snow, and got up. Jon did not know where he was, but here, he did not feel the cold. He picked up a handful of fresh, powdery, snow and watched it slip through his fingers like fine sand. He noticed that he was wearing his old tattered blacks, which made him almost feel like the ghost of a previous life. He even saw boodstains on the cloaks where the daggers had made their entrance.

_"__Come,__"_ he heard a voice that was clear with tones of iron, but where it came from, Jon Snow could only guess. He looked above, he looked behind, he looked below at the snowy ground.

Nothing. There was no one there, but mayhaps someone had just been here. A single set of horsetracks were on the ground and they looked fresh.

The solitary set of tracks went down the pass, which Jon followed, and when the pass turned to the right, he saw a queer sight up ahead.

Before him was a palace of ice, beautiful and seemingly ageless. It was directly in the middle of the small valley that the pass opened into, standing like a small forlorn mountian amidst its flat surroundings. Its design, was almost reminiscent of the Moat Cailin, which was first put up by the children of the forest in the Dawn Age. It was roughly half as tall as the wall. Above it all, He could see the Ice Dragon, it's blue eye that pointed the way north for many weary travellers looked to be directly above the great foreboding structure shining brighter than any star, even the red wanderer.

Jon walked down to the strange fortress, and crossed the small causeway at it's entrance. The gates were open, but of life this place was bare. He felt a queer chill as he crossed the courtyard, which was bare execpt for thirteen spikes of ice that jutted from the ground and nearly met at the top as if to support some great pavillion. Within, he saw what appeared to be an altar of some strange oily black stone that was round and polished on the top.

It was as if some invisble force was pulling him into these halls. The main doors to the great hall, if that is what it was, had its doors wide open and Jon entered.

The place looked to have been in great condition on the outside, but within, no man would have expected the state ruin it was in. Much of the roof had collapsed, and a thick blanket of snow covered the floor in the absence of the roof. He noticed steel in certain parts of the room. It braced the shattered windows of stained glass and wound itself around the massive coloumns, and at the end he saw what looked like a jagged mass of twisted metal that crowned the dais of the hall. Above it, was another piece of steel with three pieces standing tall, of what might have once been a set of seven.

Jon walked towards the end of the hall, but as he approached the dais, all the steel in the room vanished.

As if that was not strange enough, another opened door appeared only a few steps behind, where the ugly mass in front of him had been.

The room was a bedchamber, smaller and warmer, he heard music, a lovely sound from a harp as soon as he entered. His eyes went to a man inside who held the harp. He was tall man with the features of a fabled Targaryen. His eyes were a dark indigo, the hair on his head was a silvery blond that made Jon instinctively wonder if maester Aemon had once looked like this.

"Aegon," he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. "What better name for a king?" The beautiful man put down his harp.

"Will you make a song for him?" the woman asked.

"He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Jon's, and it seemed as if he saw noticed his presence in the room. "There must be one more," he said, though whether he was speaking to him or the woman in the bed he could not say. "The dragon has three heads." He picked up a harp once more, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the mist, only the music lingering behind to speed him on his way to the next opened door.

He was now walking inside a dungeon of some sort. It was like the inside of the a mine long played out, its support timbers now linked iron grates throughout the corridor. Dimly lit by a few torches, and bereft of prisoners, this place looked deserted.

But then he heard a familiar voice.

"The darkness will devour them all she says, this night that never ends, unless I triumph." The voice of Stannis Baratheon, left no room for doubt. "I never asked for this, no more than I asked to be king," he continued. "We do not chose our destiny, but we must still do our duty."

His back was to Jon, but he still looked like the Stannis he remembered. One of his arms was reaching into the iron grate, where the door must have been. He was speaking into that cell, and Jon was able to make out the features of a man within.

"What's one bastard boy against a kingdom?" Stannis asked to the man behind the cell. Jon could feel the hair standing on the back of the neck. A cold gust of wind blew down the tunnel and everything he saw around him turned to ice before breaking and disappearing leaving an open cell door that led him to another sight.

This time it was a cave, one with weirwood roots lining its walls and a seat fashioned from a tree.

"It's time," an ancient voice occupying the weirwood throne proclaimed. Its speaker was a pale skeletal figure whose rotted blacks instantly marked him as a man of the Night's Watch.

"Time for what?" The voice of a young boy asked.

Jon's eyes were drawn to a boy with auburn hair who sat on smaller throne of Weirwood. His features twiched in recogition when he realized that it was Bran, his voice was a little deeper than Jon recalled, he even sounded more familiar through the weirwood.

"For the next step. For you to go beyond skinchanging and learn what it means to be a greenseer."

"The trees will teach him," for the first time Jon noticed the strange creatures that were also present in the cavern. Their skin was nut brown dappled with spots of white, their eyes were golden like those of cats. Jon had never seen them before, but he knew enough to know that these were the Children of the Forest. The speaker held a many faced bowl of Weirwood which contained a white substance with what looked to be splotches of blood. "This is the paste of Weirwood seeds, this will awaken your gifts as a greenseer."

A thought flickered in his mind, was this lord Brynden that the voice of Bran had mentioned earlier?

"Bran!" Jon called out, but he did not hear him, no body seemed to pay attention to his presence, they only vanished like those before fading into mist until only the ugly withered thing on the overgrown seat of Weirwood remained. "Lord Brynden, is that you!"

Lord Brynden did not vanish as the rest did. It merely cocked it head, and Jon felt a mysterious force trying to enter his mind. A cry of fear left his mouth, he was being warged.

He had seen many of the free-folk skinchange into their animals, but he had never seen anyone skinchange into a fellow man. The creature's will entered his head with overpowering force.

It was agreed among those who warged never to enter another man's mind, and now Jon understood why. If a man's soul could be raped, than this was how.

_It has been a long time since I saw a living person in blacks, _A voice in his head that was not his spoke.

_Who are you? _He thought against the invading force. His body suddenly began moving against his own will.

_I had many names when I was young and quick like you, some call me the three eyed crow, among other names for I watch the world with a thousand eyes and one and many of them have followed you._

A leg lifted, one that he didn't control, and he felt his body jerk with the movement of an unwilling footstep.

_You seek to stop the inevitable. The darkness that cannot be stopped._

His body jerked forward again and suddenly, Jon was overlooking a ravine

_You hope to preserve the __realms of men__, but you don't want to see the change. __You want to be a hero, but you fight your true nature._ _You were meant for great things, things greater than wearing a cloak, but to realize them, you must submit to the power of the cold __and worship its icy dieties__._

_Bastard born I too was, but I have hold greater power when i'm gone to the trees, than I did in life, __and so can you__._

His head lowered and he tried not to look, at the ravine below. No sooner had he closed his eyes, however that a great pain took him in the forehead, as if a sword entered him. He screamed in pain and cursed the monstrous thing on his weirwood chair with his mouth which he could now control.

_You will see, and with more than your eyes._

His knees gave out from the pain, and suddenly the terror in his head was gone. But he was falling down the ravine, it faded from view, but he could still feel himself falling.

All around his saw strange sights. "You know nothing, Jon Snow." Ygritte was mocking him one final time as she died in the snow. A lizard-lion emerged from murky water and bared its teeth long and sharp as daggers.

Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest plate of a dying knight in regal armor, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a name. He saw a dragon, on a mountian carved into stone breathing fire as it woke. Ice, the sword of house Stark, came down on his father's own neck as he whispered a prayer. Ghost was by a stream north of the wall drinking from the cold fresh water.

A city with a tall tower in its harbor was aflame, its collective shrieks were heard. He heard a familiar raven call out "King." A man in black with no face but a giant pomegranite, approached an altar occupied by a woman in red bound to it hand and foot drawing his dagger, as a beautiful creature of ice looked on and gave a nod of approval. A blue rose was being consumed by flame. On an island of carved weirwoods, men in green knelt before him.

Suddenly the visions were all ripped away.

Jon Snow opened his eyes with a scream, and tumbled out of bed. Much to his surprise, he felt the force of the ironwood flooring kiss his body.

He looked around, he knew this place, it was the room that he had called his own as a boy. Jon looked down at his body, and realized that once again he was a boy as well.

It had worked, he was back in Winterfell long before any of the madness that would later grip the north happened. He felt around the room, to make sure that this was not another illusion.

Though his quarters where fairly simple in terms of furnishings to his trueborn siblings as he recalled, the familiar, and very comfortable surroundings and it almost brought a tear to his eyes as he thought of his mostly carefree childhood and the happy times. He remembered the blankets over his bed of black wool, and the small stove that against the wall that heated his room. Looking under the bed, Jon found the small chest where many of his personal effects were stored.

He pulled it out and opened it, taking out the darks furs that were covering all other contents. After putting it on, Jon closed the box and bolted out of his room...

And tripped over a small figure.

Once again, he felt the assurance of the solid wooden floors when he fell. When he turned around, he saw that he had tripped over one of his brothers. At first glimpse, he almost thought it was Rickon. That was clearly not the case, as he been crouched in front of Jon's door.

A second look convinced him that this was Bran at five namedays. The Bran Stark he knew was always a curious boy, who loved to eavesdrop on anyone.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "Are you hurt?"

His trueborn five year-old brother shook his head. "I'm ok"

his expression then turned to one of sheepish curiosity.

"Who's lord Brynden? He sounds mean."

**This one was lots of fun, I don't know if I can top this.**


	8. Unchained

**Flashforward**

The stranger in the corner of her favorite tavern, beckoned her to come closer. He looked to be a few years younger than she was, when he tipped up the wide brimmed hat of woven straw.

"I'm told your friends call you the Sphinx." His accent almost assured her that he was a local certainly he talked like a man of Oldtown, he even like spoke like one of the Citadel. He could have been born and raised a few blocks east of here, somewhere in the opulent neighborhoods near the Starry Sept. There was something else in his voice though. He was possibly gentry from the countryside north of Oldtown. She might not have caught it, bastard born as she was. But this man already unnerved her. He knew things.

The Sphinx nodded. The man gave a thin, almost shy smile. "An old man told me once, he said that the Sphinx is the riddle."

* * *

><p><strong>Samwell<strong>

He saw the light fade from the sky and dim from beyond the clouds up above. He heard the sounds of the sea, and felt the gentle rocking of the boat that held his form like a cradle. His lungs inhaled, and took a breath of familiar air, cold and damp as it was at this waterfront before the dawn.

Maester Samwell got off his back, and was on his knees. He saw at once, that the boat was tied to a pier. Carefully, Sam found his footing and braced himself against the mooring post, before pulling himself out of the boat.

With the feel of the pier underneath bobbing up and down, he slowly moved down the docks for the dry ground up ahead.

He then knew where he was. He was at the Citadel. The Weeping Docks, was the place he had just left. He turned left from the docks passing the Seneschal's Court and the stocks meant for the punishment of acolytes facing the river. Passing the court, he entered the open air market at the entance square for the Citadel, known as Scribe's Hearth. The stalls were vacant, no scribes waiting for custom at this hour, the wares scattered across the paved cobblestone square.

At that moment, he suddenly became aware of a horrible smell. It could only be the smell of burning flesh. Looking around the marketplace, it was if he had only truly noticed his surroundings.

The beautiful sandstone walls that enclosed the Citadel lands on the East bank of the Honeywine from the rest of the city, were blackened, and was shorter in many places then he remembered. The smells were horrible, and Sam had to retch. He did so and it landed on a black rock the size of a skull. A faint hiss could be heard. _The rock is molten,_ Sam had noticed. What was this, where was he truly? Who could have done this?

It dawned on him, the ruined walls now turned black, came from dragonflame. He had stopped at Harrenhal on the way north and had already seen the result of dragonflame.

Daenerys Targaryen had brought her dragon on Oldtown, and exacted revenge on the order of the maester's, the Faith, and the Hightowers themselves.

The island on which the hall of natural sciences was built, was to his back. The gold plated statue of Dareon the Young Dragon, whose foundation was in the corner of his eye, had collapsed with nothing standing but its pedestal, and to tall and trunkless legs of iron.

He allowed his legs to take him wherever they were supposed to go, but the sights were no less horrifying. The building of Social Sciences had collapsed on itself. Leaving a pile of molten rubble. Ahead, the roof of the two storied citadel archives was aflame.

The path was in fact a familiar one, one that he took often to get to the Isle of Ravens. Unlike many other places, the isle looked unchanged amist the flames that engulfed the rest of the Citadel behind him.

In the thoughts of it all, the sound of his feet on the strong but weathered drawbridge were a welcoming sound. The rusted iron portcullis was up as usual, and the wooden doors were open. In the center courtyard, he happened upon the great Weirwood that dominated it. A solitary white raven, was perched on it's branches. _North, _it called. He turned his gaze to the North tower. This was the place he had stayed during his time in the Citadel.

Opening the entrance to the tower, he walked into a large hall he had never seen before. All the same however, he knew the sight of the Iron Throne at once. What got his attention was the sight of two men conversing at the foot of the dais. Whatever reality Sam was in, seemed madder still.

One was a bald man, who wore elegant robes of the finest purple. The other, wore elegant finery, grey trimmed with silver. His hair was black with only a light hint of grey. His chin sported a small but well trimmed pointed beard.

The bald man in the colored robes approached the handsome taller man.

"I did what I did for the good of the realm." His thin, edged voice gave cold contempt and carried throughout the room. The lord in purple could have been no one else but lord Varys. He had seen the Eunuch's capture and execution after Tumbleton. The other man Sam had never seen before.

"The realm," The taller lord smirked, making a wide mocking gesture. "Do you know what the realm is? It's the thousand swords of Aegon's enemies forged into a throne, a story we agree to tell each other, over and over, until we forget that it's a lie."

Lord Varys held his ground, "But what do we have left once we abandon the lie, chaos? A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all."

"Chaos isn't a pit," the proud lord with the pointed beard proclaimed. "Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail, and never get to try it again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, but they refuse. They cling to the realm, to the or the gods or love, illusions. Only the ladder is real, the climb is all there is."

Into mist and shadow they faded, and light came only from a small door. Passing through the door, Sam Saw himself in a lordly chamber. In the distance, were screams. A great balcony could be entered from the chamber, that saw a single man standing against the sky alight with carnage from below.

A great creature descended on the balcony, he saw the green and gold scales of Viserion, the last dragon.

"Daenerys Targaryen, I expected you." His voice was calm and gave no indication of the suffering of the smallfolk below.

"Leyton Hightower," the voice of Daenerys Targaryen was booming. "One of my children was murdered by your dogs."

"As far as I know, you never had children." Lord Hightower's voice was stoic.

Even in rage, she sounded like a queen, maester Aemon would be proud to meet. He quickly regretted the thought. The Hightowers and the citadel, and even the faith had been instrumental in bringing down the Targaryens over many generations, but what would Aemon have said about her relentless quest for vengence.

"They do not call me mother of dragons for nothing!"

"Your house has plotted against my blood since the Dance of Dragons. In my travels, I met several chained maester's who had stories to tell. The last one even told me how Drogon died."

Sam felt a pang of guilt, was it possible that this was all his fault.

"Yes, I ordering the killing, Daenerys Targaryen. I tried to exterminate the dragons, but I did it for the good of the realm."

"The realm needs dragons!" The silver queen hissed with anger.

"The realm is better off without them. Your house is not fit to rule the seven kingdoms, do you not understand. Untold thousands have died needlessly from the follies of your forebears."

"And thousands below are dying needlessly for yours, do you hear them Hightower?"

He bowed his head with dignity, "Soon I will join them I know, but I am not afraid. The Hightowers have sacrificed many for the greater good, including ourselves. Kill me and prove the meaning of your words."

She screamed in high Valyrian, and fire overtook the balcony, and then the chamber where he was.

He saw he was now in a clearing of a forest. The foilage, was much like the woodlands outside of Horn Hill. On the ground was a hunter sprawled across the green field, his tanned buckskin stained with blood. Poking out from his back, was an arrow planted firmy into his spine, with the fletching of a crooked huntsman's arrow not made for game, but not for war as most arrows were fletched on Horn Hill.

He got closer to fallen man, and looked even closer. A opened wineskin was held in the left hand of the dead man, that smelled of a sour Arbor Red. His right hand, seemed to pointing a stiff and dead accusing finger in his direction.

Sam backed away and suddenly, a loud rumble shook the earth below. The ground behind him opened up and he fell swallowed by an endless pit, or so it felt. The rocky walls around him began to glow queerly. The vision around him blurred.

Sam woke up with a start, and tried to jump out of bed.

His awkward, overweight form however, was heaveir than he recalled, and he hit the floor on his stomach with his feet still tangled in the bedsheets.

For a moment Samwell Tarly just laid where he was. Then his feet untangled themselves from the sheets, and with a surprising amount of difficulty, he pushed himself to his feet.

Sam looked down at his own plump form. Clearly it had worked, Sam decided. Not only was he in his younger, fatter body, but the room he was in was one of the apartments along the wall across from the Great Keep. No longer, was he Maester Samwell, a chained member of the Citadel. Now he was just Samwell Tarly, the heir to Horn Hill who would someday be dispossesed of his home. It felt good to be back, especially when he had a chance to change everything he had known.

He had been moved here by his father's orders nearly three years before being compelled to join the watch. The Tarlys of Horn Hill had a long legacy of hard men, leading some of the finest soldiers in all of Westeros. His lord father, did not want to talk about him, and had been more and more keen over the years on hiding him from visitors, not wanting to be embarrased by his firstborn son who did not live up to his father's hopes for a warrior.

Sam felt a strong taste of disgust at the thought of Randyll Tarly. On the eve of Tumbleton, his father had learned that he had forged a maester's chain, and in the early morning hours, a hedge knight, tried to assassinate him. He had survived the attack, and in a desperate fight for his life, had mortally wounded the assassin. The dying knight, had confessed that his own lord father had hired him to erase the shame brought the Tarlys. He never had a chance to confront his father who slain only hours later when his Vanguard trying to hold the northern bank of the Mander, until reinforcements arrived from across the river on pleasure barges. Dragonflame had broken his defensive knot, and a few thousand unsullied did the rest. Tarly had lost the battle before Aegon's Dornishmen could even link up as the army tried to cross the river.

The ring of blunted steel on blunted steel could be heard below in the yard, near the postern gate in the shadow of the bell tower. Below his apartments, were the barracks and the armory. His father had hoped to shame him by quartering him here. It had bothered him at first, how he had been separated from the rest of his family. A few other apartments, were above the barracks. These were inhabited by household knights, most of whom disliked him. That they were delighted to see him go, he did not doubt. They were proud men, who chafed at the thought of serving a master who was a lesser warrior than themselves.

His quarters did not bother him now though. After what he had been through, it was like discovering a forgotten luxury.

Sam opened his wardrobe, and chose garments of boiled leather. It was a slow process for Sam, it had been a long time since he had difficultly putting something on. Sam would have to lose some weight he knew, but first he would gorge himself on some fruit in the kitchen storeroom.

He saw a large robe of cotton, which he selected and put over his leathers. If he came downstairs dressed in warrior's clothing, word would get around. He would get too much attention before he was ready for it. After all, secrets were difficult to keep in a castle.

He tied a thin rope around the robe colored green, opened the door and walked down the stairs with the kitchen storerooms in mind.


End file.
